Category: Imbolc

Brigid Walks the Land. Fire Up Your Forge!

6/1/2019

It's starting. Can you feel it? The light has already changed so obviously here in Oregon. Something is waking up in me. I am not usually depressed around MIdwinter. I love the dark and the long nights, and don't mind being alone at this time like some people do. But I have been deeply depressed recently.

DavidBellamyArt

Yesterday morning was not the first day I noticed the change in the light, but it was the first morning that it broke through my gloom and touched me in some physical way. Got through my skin. As often happens around Imbolc, a new poem for Brigid came to me.

wind in the hair and
fire in the head
Brigid walks the land

fire up your forge!
gather your cattle
for calving
fletch your arrows
and set them alight

go to a high place
and look how
she has spread
her cloak of green fields
and brown fields

Brigid walks the land
fire up your forge!

Bridget by Jo Dose

Yes, Imbolc is coming. We think of snowdrops, and increasing light, of Brigid and the Cailleach. Some consider it a time of ascendency for the Rowan tree. I have been wanting to share a little something about this poem, called "Song" by Seamus Heaney for awhile now.

I love this for many reasons. Each mention of tree and flower seems to bring the spirit of that plant to me. The red berried rowan which has associations with witchcraft and protection, the alder which so often has its feet in the water, the rushes, the immortelles - which is another name for Helichrysum, those little button-like flowers that dry so beautifully. Then there is birdsong and "mud flowers" and dialect. It's a lot in eight lines! And the music of what happens. What about that? Well, it's referencing this:

So now you know. It's a bit Zen, isn't it? I find myself so frustrated by what is happening in our world. But I can only do what is given to me to do. Sometimes I have to accept that I am caught up in events much greater than myself, events not of my making. In the story, Stephens goes on the say that Fionn loved what happened and "would not evade it by the swerve of a hair". We spend a lot of time thinking about how to evade what might happen, not stopping to think that our energy is better spent dealing with whatever is before us. That we are better off responding to life with all the strength and beauty we can muster. That was always Fionn's way.

As the season of Imbolc comes, and Brigid walks the land, I always feel Her fiery inspiration. There is work to do.

I have recently created a chapbook of some of my other poems about Brigid and the Cailleach, written over the years. This little book is a handy size to use in rituals and devotional work.

See product page for details.

Poems for the Season of Imbolc

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If Angus Would Come!

1/2/2014

5 Comments

Tigh nam Bodach, Gleann Cailliche - Marc Calhoun

Early on Bride's morn
The serpent shall come from the hole,
I will not molest the serpent,
Nor will the serpent molest me.

On the day of Bride of the white hills
The noble queen will come from the knoll,
I will not molest the noble queen,
Nor will the noble queen molest me.

These must be among the first verses I ever read from the Carmina Gadelica. They are two of many verses which have to do with Bride's Day, or Imbolc. If I'm honest, living here in Colorado is getting me down. Rather than looking forward to spring as I would wish to, I find myself merely dreading another summer that will be too hot and dry, and so I've been struggling to muster enthusiasm for the coming holiday of Imbolc. But a couple of hours ago, something quite small and wonderful happened. I found this:

He or she was neatly folded between two flakes of hay, in a bale I opened to feed the horses. It felt like a sign. If anybody ever needed a sign, it was me, so I'll take it as so. I already had the beginnings of a poem in my head, but it had been refusing to form. My little serpent muse did the trick, however. So here is my poem.

If Angus Would Come

If young Angus would come
We would drown the filthy plaid of winter
In the speckled cauldron of Jura.

We would search out my bright cloak,
My green cloak, my fair cloak,
My patchwork cloak of pastures and fields.
Oh, if only he would come!

When Angus comes
He will search for me
Guided by the light of a thousand candles.

He will know my abode
By the sark I have hung on the window sill.
It collects the snow, to be wrung as dew
To ease his wounds when he comes.

When Angus comes
The serpent will rise,
And I will rise up as a queen,

As a flaming arrow
Piercing the heart of a crone.
A merciful bolt, forged of silver.
If young Angus would only come!

But when will young Angus come?
Then I can lie down in a bed of ease
Attended by maidens.

It's then I can rise up again
To the sound of burns in spate.
Flowers will spring under our very feet.
If only young Angus would come!

- Kris Hughes 2014

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like The Cailleach Becomes Bride and Visions in meditation - part 1

Poems for the Season on Imbolc

Poems for the Season of Imbolc

8.00

"Some of the most amazing pagan poetry I’ve ever been blessed to encounter." -
- Sharon Paice MacLeod, author of Celtic Cosmology and the Otherworld, and The Divine Feminine in Ancient Europe

At Imbolc, Brigid, the goddess of poetic inspiration, walks the land. These poems were composed over many years, and under the influence of different folkloric ideas – particularly that of the juxtaposition of Brigid (or Bride, as we call her in Scotland) and the Cailleach.

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Death Shall Have No Dominion

31/1/2013

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A guided meditation inspired by poetry.

For my personal daily card draw I have my meditation and prayer cards shuffled in with my oracle deck. Today, this card came up. I thought it was interesting and appropriate, with all the thinking and writing I have been doing about the Cailleach and Bride. At the winter solstice, this card felt particularly appropriate, with the short days, and so on. However, it feels equally appropriate now, at Imbolc, with its theme of the natural cycles of death and rebirth in nature and in our lives. Looking at the cycles of nature and of the seasons we can all have certainty of rebirth to come.

I was not aware of Dylan Thomas' poem until I heard it quoted by the great Irish writer and philosopher John Moriarty. The sound of his voice rolling the lines forth, drawing out the "o" in the word "no" ... "They shall have stars at elbow and feet, and death shall have nooooo dominion" was both touching and felt like a sort of wake-up call. A call to hope and faith.

John was a man who had experienced the utter demolition of his faith, but had gone on to explore what can only be described as "the meaning of life" in minute, patient detail. He did this via a process at once deeply personal and yet universal -- through immersing himself in nature to an almost hermetic degree, through exploring the mythology not only of the Irish, but of many other cultures. He emerged from this, toward the end of his life, with a spirituality of great depth and breadth -- not always easy for his readers to nail down, and yet so enriching to behold. I will write more about his work in the future.

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

~ Dylan Thomas

Meditation and Prayer cards are available in the webshop at this link

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The Cailleach Becomes Bride

29/1/2013

3 Comments

At the recent winter solstice, I heard Damh the Bard's wonderful Colloquy of the Oak and Holly Kings for the first time. While some think of the changing of the light or of the seasons as a battle between warmth and cold or dark and light, I love how his poem acknowledges the process of gradual change. At every point in the wheel of the year which we mark as important, I see it more as a day to pause and take note of the changes that are ongoing, or a day to take heart, knowing that they will occur. Winter and spring need not always be seen as enemies. They are also partners, who each have their part in turning the wheel. This poem came to me at Imbolc two years ago. I hope you enjoy it!

The Cailleach Becomes Bride

Bleak.
Cold
and silence.
Iron hard ground
The roiling sea that blasts the cliffs
under a sky of nothingness

The frosted stone
the frozen grass
useless for fodder
under the feet
of tired and haggard sheep

They say I am wise
with the wisdom perhaps
of the migration of reindeer
who scrape the moss
the runes of twigs
the raven who finds her morsel
and the lynx
who waits it out

But I can yet dance
Climb the trees
laugh
and raise a wind
to throw last years leaves
into a dervish circle

I can tease a gentler climate
up the valley
to moisten the loins
bring thoughts of some lustier dame
Only to tumble you
onto the ice
What were we thinking!

I cackle again from the treetops
raising a storm that sends the cattle
lowing and bucking in indignation
from sleet like knives
to the shelter of the dyke
The ponies
lower their heads to the ground
tails plastered to their legs

I will jig and reel down the beach
entangled in seaweed
Enraged
I will blast your windows
and tear your thatch
You must regard me!
I will rip your hat off
slap your face
and make you look at death squarely
We must discuss this
however briefly

Snow
soft and moist
as the blanket of a newborn
Quietly coddling
the first snowdrops
the brightness
of a candle

Like a maiden
with the gentle blandness
of purity
Yet knowing
She dances
under the peaceful
painted snow
the dance
of the quickening seed

The crocus flung up purple
like trying Mother's hat
discarded in the naked dance
of further flurries
and the Cailleach's blood
running in her veins
like the burn in spate

Dancing mad as a hare
across the lawn
like a tumble of kittens
that run
spraddle legged
on their first jaunts
or the wonder of lambs
put to pasture
flinging out a highland leg

Increasing now
in quiet knowing
in the naming of each flower
in its successive season
their buds waiting
in her small womb
where the Cailleach nestles
against her backbone

Dreaming

- Kris Hughes 2011

Cailleach painting by Mairin-Taj Caya Girl with Flowers painting by Belmourida

Poems for the Season of Imbolc

Poems for the Season of Imbolc

8.00

"Some of the most amazing pagan poetry I’ve ever been blessed to encounter." -
- Sharon Paice MacLeod, author of Celtic Cosmology and the Otherworld, and The Divine Feminine in Ancient Europe

At Imbolc, Brigid, the goddess of poetic inspiration, walks the land. These poems were composed over many years, and under the influence of different folkloric ideas – particularly that of the juxtaposition of Brigid and the Cailleach.

3 Comments

We Need to Talk About the Cailleach

27/1/2013

2 Comments

Is the Cailleach actually many local weather goddesses? Is she a goddess at all?

I'm a bit worried about the Cailleach these days. She is not a simple character in either Scots or Irish folklore. You will not find the Cailleach in the great sagas and cycles of Irish or Welsh gods and heroes. You will find other "hag" figures, and if you like to take the view that all hags are just re-workings of one archetype, then I guess you can run with that. However, let's just stick to the Cailleach, for now. I said that she is not simple, but rather than being the opposite, which might be complex, I'd say that she is diverse. We don't find many variants of one Cailleach story, so much as we find a number of pretty dissimilar stories whose common thread seems to be weather. Perhaps we should introduce our stories in future, by saying "Here is a tale of a cailleach."

Cailleach mask by Sarah Lawless

In Scotland, tales of weather hags which include the Cailleach Bheur, various carlines and witches and a figure known perversely as "Gentle Annie" abound, but most of these tales are very localised. Generally, the local Cailleach lives up the nearest large or barren mountain peak, or somewhere similar. She seems particularly associated with the rough weather that is common in late winter and early spring. Many regions experience a sort of false spring around the beginning of February, when lambs are born and a little fishing might be possible, only to find that the weather regresses into wildness around the time of the equinoxial gales. Scottish and Irish weather is unsettled at the best of times, but this unpredictability is particularly frustrating, challenging and dangerous at this time of year, when people were traditionally running out of foodstuffs as well as patience.

The Cailleach tales are many, but there are several general themes. In one, we find the hag holding spring/summer prisoner - usually in the form of a maiden, who may be called Bride, or Brigid. Through cunning, or with the assistance of a helper (in one case Angus Óg) Bride is able to defeat the Cailleach or escape, and spring is able to progress. However, it seems that most of these tales are modern variants of just one story collected by one folklorist, which got spread about in the folklore revival of the 20th century. This in no way devalues this story, but it is an oversimplification to say that "This is the Cailleach story." The theme of the Cailleach holding a prisoner also comes up in some local tales where a hunter or fisherman is imprisoned by an amorous Cailleach. In these tales, it may be that if the fellow is willing to kiss or make love to her, she will be young again. Meanwhile, other variants on the Cailleach/Bride theme have them as one and the same entity, where the Cailleach cyclically grows old and is renewed annually by a well of youth or some similar device.

There is also a famous poem from around the 9th century, known as The Lament of the Old Woman of Beare. This is the complaint of an old woman who has lost her beauty and wealth. Almost a kind of female Job. She says things like, "When my arms are seen, all bony and thin, they are not, I declare, worth raising around comely youths." and "My hair is scant and grey; to have a mean veil over it causes no regret." This atmosphere of bitterness and anger is one of the things which runs through the different tales of the Cailleach. Inevitably, she is portrayed as ugly and misshapen, often a giantess. Her skin is blue, she has only one eye, red teeth and other horrors - and she is not happy about it.

Sometimes she has a number of cohorts or sisters of similar appearance and they are frequently credited with having created large features of the landscape, either by the action of their enormous feet or with hammers. One strong geographical association is with the Corryvreckan whirlpool, which lies between the Isle of Jura and the west coast of Scotland. This is a very real and dangerous stretch of water, and is said to be the place where the Cailleach washes her plaid (a shawl or cloak).

The Corryvreckan today

The Scots have a talent for irony, and the name "Gentle Annie" is a great example of this. Gentle Annie is the Cailleach figure known to fishermen of northeast Scotland, where "Gentle Annie weather" refers to the rough seas and gales of spring, which begin around the equinox and may continue until the end of April.

I Know Where I'm Going

In my mind, even the 1945 Scottish film "I Know Where I'm Going", with its situation of people stormbound, and its famous scene at the Corryvreckan whirlpool, is somehow a continuation of the theme of the young gaining the upper hand over the old, as the heroine, who is destined to marry an older man is wooed and won by the young laird who overcomes him and reclaims his lands. The only thing missing is an actual old woman -- the weather itself takes that role. Or perhaps that part is taken by the young laird's mysterious, slightly older ex, living a strange, elemental life with her deerhounds and shotgun. If you have never seen this film it is a real cracker -- but I digress...

I'm deeply indebted to "Seren" for her article on this topic on the Tairis website. It's well researched and well presented information helped to remind me of what I already knew, as well as giving me one or two new snippets of information. This helped me get my thoughts in order and made writing this piece much less of a chore. I also looked at the Cailleach from the angle of my oracle work in First there is a mountain... some months ago.

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Brigid Walks the Land. Fire Up Your Forge!

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!
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If Angus Would Come!

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!
Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.

Death Shall Have No Dominion

A guided meditation inspired by poetry.

Subscribe to my newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!

The Cailleach Becomes Bride

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!
Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.

We Need to Talk About the Cailleach

Is the Cailleach actually many local weather goddesses? Is she a goddess at all?

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Brigid Walks the Land. Fire Up Your Forge!

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.

If Angus Would Come!

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.

Death Shall Have No Dominion

A guided meditation inspired by poetry.

Subscribe to my newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!

The Cailleach Becomes Bride

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details! Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.

We Need to Talk About the Cailleach

Is the Cailleach actually many local weather goddesses? Is she a goddess at all?

Archives

Categories

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!
Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!
Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!
Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.